European Climate Agency: 2024 Is Likely Hottest Year on Record

A recent report by the European climate service Copernicus says that November was the second-warmest November for which the agency has records.

The finding means that Copernicus will likely declare 2024 the hottest year ever measured using its sets of data.

Copernicus called last year the hottest on record. But after this summer, scientists involved in the effort were expecting that 2024 would set a new record.

In November, the global temperature average was 14.10 Celsius. Through November, this year's average global temperature is 0.14 Celsius above the same period last year.

Jennifer Francis is a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in the northeastern U.S. state of Massachusetts. Francis, who was not involved in the report, said the big story about November is that “like 2023, it beat out previous Novembers by a large margin.”

The report said 2024 will likely be the first year in which the average temperature was more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. In earlier publications, Copernicus calls pre-industrial times the period between 1850 and 1900.

The 2015 Paris Agreement says human-caused warming should be limited to 2 degrees Celsius.

In the years following 2015, the world's top climate scientist said it was important to limit the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius to prevent the worst effects of climate change. The scientists said these effects could include increasingly destructive and frequent extreme weather events.

Copernicus Deputy Director Samantha Burgess said in a news release that “ambitious climate action is more urgent than ever.”

Many scientists say the main cause of climate change is the burning of fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.

Francis said the new records are “terrible news for people and ecosystems.”

Francis predicted bad effects from the quickly changing climate. These include the possibility of animals dying off and changes to the natural food webs that the animals are part of.

She added that coastal communities may face problems because of rising sea levels.

Experts said heat waves over the oceans and a loss of sea ice and snow cover probably played a part in the temperature increase this year. Copernicus, the European agency, said the area of Antarctic sea ice in November was 10 percent below average, a record.

The Associated Press reports that oceans absorb about 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases. They then release heat and water vapor back into the atmosphere.

Last year's record heat was caused partly by an El Niño — a temporary natural warming of parts of the central Pacific that affects weather worldwide.

But that ended earlier this year and an effect that often follows, called La Niña, failed to take place. This left the scientific community “a little perplexed by what's going on here...why temperatures are staying high,” said Jonathan Overpeck.

Overpeck is a climate scientist at the University of Michigan.

One theory is that an El Niño releases more heat to the atmosphere because of warmer ocean waters. Overpeck said, “we're not getting the cooling effect that often in decades gone by helps bring the temperature back down.”

This year, he said, “is such a big jump following yet another jump...”

I'm John Russell.

Tammy Webber reported on this story for the Associated Press. John Russell adapted it for VOA Learning English.

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margin – n. a measure or degree of difference

frequent – adj. acting or returning regularly or often

ambitious – adj. hoping to reach a particular goal